Besides the strong winds in the area throughout spring that have kept me from busking in Juarez there is something else happening out there in the streets (and just yesterday at a specific street) that, well, has started to get to me somehow. I have for as long as I’ve lived in the region, specially in the northern side of the border, resisted the overreacting tendency of many El Pasoans to believe that Ciudad Juarez is a dangerous place. After all, the violence in the city does not come close to violence in other North American cities of the same size and the violence by which Juarez is now famous is almost completely targeted violence- as opposed to random widespread violence. Be it the horrible woman-murdering trend of the last decade or the drug related executions, the violence in Ciudad Juarez seems confined, maybe even self contained in a dark and hidden bubble with which the average resident of the region seldom has anything to do.

Sure, as resident of the area, we all have our anecdotes, we’ve all heard stories, we’ve all known someone who knows someone who may be inside that dark bubble, but 1.4 million people in the Juarez metropolitan area also wake up, go to work, school, parks, etc, ride back home, go to sleep and have a regular everyday life…so my reasoning has always been on the positive side when it comes to the situation across the border. But when an armed commando starts shooting the crap out of somebody with AK-47’s and shotguns in the middle of Juarez Avenue, three or four blocks up from my busking pitch…I can’t help but feel it. Specially when at least three bystanders are caught in the crossfire and killed. Two cab drivers, a cigarette vendor, three bicycle cops responding to the incident and of course at least one of the ones the commando was aiming for got their share of led.

Now I’d hate to be an alarmist but I also can’t deny that it has gotten to me. Here’s the note for you to read from El Paso Times:

A gunbattle on the Avenida Juárez tourist strip left two men dead and wounded five others, including three bicycle police officers, as part of a resurgence of violence in Juárez.The violence, possibly linked to a war between drug cartels and government forces across Mexico, continued Friday with a double homicide in the town of Palomas and an attempt on the life of a Juárez police commander and his bodyguards. In Juárez, there were five other separate homicides as of 8 p.m. Friday.

The Avenida Juárez incident occurred about 10 p.m. Thursday about two blocks from the foot of the Paso del Norte Bridge near shops, bars and nightclubs catering to tourists and partiers from the United States.

After the shooting, a man with a gunshot wound to the torso stumbled to get medical help on the U.S. side of the international bridge.

“We had a motorist advise us that there appeared to be a man who had been shot and collapsed about 10 yards inside the United States up toward the top of the bridge,” said Roger Maier, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The bridge was temporarily closed. An ambulance took the wounded man to Thomason Hospital.

Chihuahua state police identified the men killed on Avenida Juárez as German Padilla Zavala, 27, and Oscar Luis Zapien Carbajal, 47.

Juárez news media reported that the men might have been among the parking attendants and cigarette vendors working in the area and were killed during a kidnapping attempt of another person that went wrong.

Police officials said the bicycle officers were responding to a fight and the sound of gunshots when they came under fire. Pablo Lozoya, Felipe Martinez Peralta and Mercedes Medina Ortega were in stable condition Friday morning at a Juárez hospital.

Police also said a 78-year-old man, who was sitting with his family in the back seat of a car, was grazed by several shots that struck the vehicle. Investigators found more than 35 bullets casings at the scene.

The Avenida Juarez shooting was the second in a Juárez tourist section in less than a day. Early Thursday, four El Pasoans were wounded outside the Arriba Chihuahua nightclub in the ProNaF zone near the Bridge of the Americas.

“The El Paso Convention and Visitors Bureau understands the recent events in neighboring Juárez are unsettling for some. However, it is important to note that historically there has been virtually no crime committed against tourists to El Paso or the city of Juárez,” bureau spokesman Pifas Silva said in a statement.

“It is, however, best if visitors to international cities follow a few specific guidelines: travel during daylight hours, travel with groups of two or more, frequent popular tourism attractions only, respect the laws of other countries and always carry proper identification at all times,” Silva said.

Friday morning, Juárez police commander Jose Roberto Ortiz Enriquez, who heads the Barbicora station, and two bodyguards survived an attack while riding in a patrol truck that was intercepted by shooters in a pickup, causing the bullet-riddled police vehicle to crash into a traffic-light pole, police officials said. The three were hospitalized in stable condition.

Friday afternoon, a father and son were killed in a hail of 67 bullets along a street in Palomas, across the border from Columbus, N.M., Chihuahua state police said.

Arnoldo Carreon Renteria, 57, and his son Damian Arnoldo Carreon, 25, were while getting into their pickup, with New Mexico plates, when they were shot.

Luna County Sheriff Raymond Cobos said that the men were believed to be Palomas residents and that his deputies were on alert to make sure violence did not spill over into the U.S.

Mob-style street ambushes and executions had initially declined in the region with the arrival in March of more than 2,000 Mexican army soldiers and federal police officers to Juárez and other communities in Chihuahua.

Juárez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz on Friday asked that federal and military forces do more and change strategies to stop the bloodshed, which is linked to a war across Mexico between government forces and drug-trafficking groups.

“To us, it appears evident that organized crime has learned the routine of the army. Its regular patrol routes, the hours it patrols and has designed strategies to evade” military operations, Reyes Ferriz said in a statement.

Since the start of the year, there have been more than 250 murders in Juárez, including the slayings of about 15 law enforcement officers.

Again, across the river, as a welcoming message, laid that smoggy hue. It was just there floating as if waving hello in slow motion, heavier than the power of the gentle breeze that felt too lazy to struggle with it.

I arrived to my area from the side street and discovered that a shop in the front, one of those predatory finance companies, had a PA system full blast with loud C music and an even louder DJ repeating over and over that they could get you out of debt…with a loan. So if I actually stood where I always do, at the left side of the main entrance to the museum, I would be straight across the speakers and would have had no voice by the end of the first song. I didn’t of course and opted to head towards the corner, probably one of the busiest corners in the whole 1.4.million people town. At first it was kind of difficult to hear myself but I then managed to modulate my voice and the guitar to get something out of it. I guess what usually helps me be louder just a hundred feet from there are the walls of the buildings facing me. At the corner my voice just goes everywhere without bouncing back.

I arranged mys guitar case with the essential anchor charm: a dollar bill and three coins holding it from flying out. The day was perfect and I played for a good hour, rested a little bit and then played a half more. As I have discussed in previous post, the mere fact of being there spraying my voice against the whole revolving chaos gives me sudden chuckles, outbursts of joy comparable to those expressed in a drunken state when surrounded by very good friends. I think its the nonsense of it all. I managed to gather a crowd that stayed for a whole song, that is always a pretty cool thing. It gave energy to continue playing after I had finished my first set. People even threw coins from cars which even though might be with the best of intentions it does not strike me as something I want hapening all the time.

I was nervously excited yet there wasn’t a way for me to overtly express it as obviously as I once did with frenetic pedaling when on a bicycle. Full speed-an amazing and mind boggling 18 mph- I surfed my Goped amidst the cars in central El Paso. Maybe my turns and zigzags were slightly more anxious, maybe my head was stiffer all the while, maybe I gave a few more fingers or yelled a few more obscenities to cellphone driver drones; maybe I did all of that at the same time, many times, at every a single swift of my wobbly Goped but I wouldn’t know. I was nervous.

I arrived at the downtown area where I surfed past the streets at cruising-speed but because of the narrowness of the lanes, the smallness of my being amongst the buildings and the ant-like illusion of the crowd I just felt faster, action-style faster. I arrived, I parked and I walked through the border. It’s funny but you can really smell it as soon as you are right halfway past the Rio Grande. A mixture smell of smog and lard flows towards your face as you walk down the bridge. It smells as it sounds as it tastes, like the language: spicy, spacey, spoty but also quite diffused…lardy. Something between a taco and a cloud.

I have this vision of an image being swallowed by a vacuum. That’s how it felt when I opened the guitar case on the sidewalk. Everything shut up as if absorbed by that hollow in the heart of my instrument. It was a beautiful day but I couldn’t play for that long. My fingers and throat need to readjust to the task.

I wasn’t going to, I had other things to do during the day and besides I hadn’t quite properly prepared but I went for it anyway because the weather said so. I looked out the window, decided to do it and then gathered up my stuff. I went to the room in the back to tune my guitar with my Wurlitzer tuner/something else (500 lb. church organ or something like that), cut the excess string from the new strings I’d just installed yesterday, grabbed the guitar strap from my son’s guitar, put it on mine, got it in the case. I also changed clothing from a t-shirt to a shirt and a coat, I got my passport and put it in my purse (I’ll keep on calling it like that, don’t you even mention it!), grabbed my goggles, reflective vest, helmet and a sip of water just before heading out.

Right at the door I decided that it was a bit much to carry the purse with me when my guitar case had extra pockets for gear. So I went back to seat my guitar on the couch, got my camera, my chain and my passport out of the purse and into the guitar case pockets.

As I was going out I thought it was a bad idea to have my passport just dangling around with the rest of the stuff, so I stopped, got it out and into the little side pocket of my coat it went. Once outside I got my goped started, warmed it up a bit, accelerated on neutral two or three times and headed towards the front yard door. While doing so I felt a bit overdressed. Never mind wearing a fancy shirt or a coat to busk in the streets, but rather the fact that such a coat was dark dark blue and made out of wool while it was sunny and 71°F outside. So I went back in, threw the coat on the bed, got another sip of water, rushed out, got on the goped and took off.

The ride was quite nice actually. The streets of downtown El Paso were buzzing with people and they all stared at the goped as if it was something out of this world, not like cool-out of this world, but rather ridiculous-out of this world. With a face that seemed to say something like “what’s that gonna do when it gets squashed by a Hummer!” Anyway, I arrived at the bridge, proceeded to lock my goped and helmet and as I walked towards the booth to pay my 35c to cross the bridge I remembered…the coat, the little left side inner pocket and my passport inside of it. Needless to say, I didn’t make it across the border. It was just one of those instances where you can picture the strawberry ice cream ball tumbling towards the floor from your clumsily tipped cone, all in slow motion. I just unlocked my goped, got on it and headed back home full speed.

You must know that in addition to the trans-border bi-city complexity of this urban conglomerate we also have a separate little military city embedded within. It isn’t precisely located in what one could call the heart of the urban area but maybe in what might as well be the prostate of El Paso. The name of this military complex is Fort Bliss and according to the 2000 census it is home to something like 9,000 people. Now, the year 2000 is long gone and Fort Bliss is changing and growing really fast. It is said that the base is being prepared to receive as many as 40,000 people in the next 5 years. That being said without any particular commentary allow me to tell you a little anecdote that happened this weekend.

As I sat at work just staring at the mountain from afar waiting for a story to unfold a call came. It wasn’t for me but rather for the person with whom I share a tourist information booth, that happens to be inside Fort Bliss. The caller informed my working neighbor of something happening at one of the gates of the military complex, a protest of some sort. According to the caller it had to do with some anti war thing. Because I was so extremely busy giving out tourist information to soldiers that can’t even leave base, as soon as she informed me of such happening I grabbed my camera and said “I’ll be right back.” I started rapidly walking towards the indicated direction when I suddenly remembered that my bicycle had been parked at the bike rack for the past week and a half. So I walked back in the opposite direction, past by my booth again and towards the northern exit of the building. I grabbed my bike and started pedalling.

When I got to the indicated gate all I saw was a lot of military police vehicles and some sort of improvised barricade, I thought it was over but still decided to go a little further out of base. So I crossed the overpass that leads to base and when I was pedalling down I saw the protest: a group of 5 or 6 ladies and a teenager holding American flags and a bunch of banners surrounded by something like 20 bikers, all in full leather attire with more American flags counter-protesting the protesters. Some of the bikers were ridding annoyingly around the protesters drowning their voices with their exhaust. As I arrived nearer to the event, I parked my bicycle next to the cops safeguarding the whole ordeal. Three of the slogans written on the banners inevitably caught my attention. They said: “God is you enemy”, “Pray for more dead soldiers” and, “God hates fag enablers.” From this I kind of deduced what the protesters were about, I’ve read about them and I know they had nothing to do with the antiwar movement, nevertheless I decided to let my inner journalist out and start asking questions. From the demographics of the event I decided that between extremely pissed off bikers, some weirdo haters and law enforcement officers my best bet for reliable, educated and updated information was an objective and knowledgeable cop. So I started with the questions, casually:

Me– “So…what is all this abut?”

Cop– “That’s what it is all about” He said pointing to the banners of the protesters.

Me– “Yeah, yeah, but I mean, who are this people?”

Cop– “Liberals I guess…”

I guess I had tapped not just the wrong source of information but the I-don’t-care-about-anything-I-was-just-sent-here-and-all-I-know-is-that-liberals-suck source. So then I thought about my second best possible source: a biker lady with a cardboard sign.

Me– “So what is this all about?”

Biker lady-” They are protesting our troops.”

Me-” I understand, but who are they or how did you know that they were going to be here in order to mount your counter-protest?”

Biker Lady– “I don’t know, you should ask that guy over there…”

She pointed to a guy across the street who was holding an American flag, was dressed in leather, had the inevitable beard and was wearing a nice and friendly confederate army hat.

Me– “Hi, I was told that you could tell me what’s going on here, where are these people coming from?”

Biker dude– “They come from Fuckin’-Nuts-Land, Kansas”

Me-” Ooookay…And…uh… how did you know they were going to be here in order to counter-protest?”

Biker dude-” We have our ways…we have our ways.”

Me-“Oh, alright….well, thank you for your answers.”

I know I wasn’t being extremely objective here but I just didn’t feel like asking the actual protesters, it seemed to me that it all came to show you the amount of entropy that can permeate even such a small public gathering. I mean, I wonder who knew what was actually happening and what reasons if any existed for the happening. The protesters were protesting a funeral of a General that died in a motorcycle accident (whatever that has to do with homosexuals and how and what they enable just escapes my reasoning); the counter-protesters were protesting the fact that this group was protesting the troops and; the cops were just staring at the void like inanimate shields that only filtered the friction as a matter of some lunatic liberals rubbing against some hard-line patriots.

It kind of tells you how far is El Paso from anywhere. Far enough from Mexico to fear it, so outside of Texas that anybody running for office runs as a Democrat, further away from New Mexico than from Arizona defying geographical logic and just…well, you have no idea, and apparently neither do we.

So I waited all day at home yesterday for the owner of that guitar to arrive, I had my mind set. I woke up very early, made myself a cup of coffee, scribbled down a full set of ten or 11 songs and played it full volume in the kitchen. After finishing it up with a bang I released the strap from the guitar (that much is mine), sat the guitar in my tripod and dutifully cleaned it with some kind of weird wood oil that we use in furniture. I also retuned it properly with that 500 lb tuner of mine, because I know nobody won’t once she’s home. In other words I petted the guitar with that condescending cloth of prideful deliverance that says “here, you can have it back but she’ll never be the same.” I mean I could almost see myself saying, when the time to give it up came, “she’ll come back to me the second you neglect her” but that would be a little too freaky considering the fact that she‘s actually an it and has no life of its own apart from my melodramatic imagination. Anyway so I just decided not to play it all throughout the day and instead invest all that time practicing with my Turkish drum. I tuned it, cleaned it, and practiced for hours between breakfast and lunch banging along really festive Middle Eastern and Eastern European music, I was actually excited about the whole instrument change and stuff but, you guessed it, the guitar owner didn’t show up.

Now, I know that she could drop by any time so I’m still going to have that drum ready. Nevertheless I decided to go busking today with the guitar. After two weeks without doing so I was nervous again. I walked around towards the Velarde area which I had come to like quite a lot, but the PA systems were just overwhelming, so I just returned towards the museum and did my set there twice. It was quite a regular day except for the fact that I got tired pretty soon. I did walked around after I finished up busking and by the time I walked back towards Juarez avenue to walk it up to the bridge I saw that the accordion and cup duo were back playing at the corner of the museum. I thought that was cool, I thought they had given up.

After changing my pesos for dollars a lady stopped me and told me that I was a really good singer and that she likes to see me outside the museum, she congratulated me and wished me luck, that was actually pretty cool.

I had the day off and thought it would be a good idea to go busking before the whole navidad thing started. I went straight to the Velarde area an did a quick set there in stern defiance against the speakers, and then just went to my regular spot. There was a lot of people but everybody was just too busy. A couple of kids did stop and listen to me and then asked “so, whose songs do you know?” I routinely answered them: “Mine.” They weren’t that impressed.

When I finished I took my time walking on Juarez avenue looking for a good exchange rate but ended up in the same currency exchange place. The ladies there are nice and never make faces when I show up with all of those coins. Anyway, before that I stopped to talk for a little while with Don Alacran. I asked him about his business and he said it wasn’t going very well, that usually by this time of the month he had almost none of his figurines left but that this year had been terrible. As we talked about the cold weather he started to tell me about previous Christmas eves he had had. He told me how 5 years ago in a freezing and snowing Christmas eve a couple of nuns came to him and gave him ten dollars so that he could go home. He said he couldn’t even work on his figurines that day because of the cold, so he was just standing there waiting to sell something to bring dinner home. He then told me about last year’s Christmas too. A stranger came to him and told him to come with him. He then took Don Alacran to a supermarket and bought lots of food for him. He remembered how he couldn’t even carry all of that stuff and how the generous gentleman also offered a ride home but he couldn’t accept it because it would be too much. He was deeply moved.

As he was telling me this he was also saying how this Christmas eve he was just waiting long enough to sell something so that he could buy a kilo of tortillas and have some dinner. At this point I felt like asking him about his personal life, whether or not he had a family, but I thought it was too early for me to ask anything like that and instead I just asked where he lived. He told me. After spending something like ten minutes with him I decided to buy a beautiful little turtle from him. The turtles and the alacranes are a dollar, the amazing butterflies are $2.50.

There is at least one other guy that does the same kind of figurines but he seems less approachable even in the aesthetics of his craft. While Don Alacran makes beautiful butterflies this other guy makes menacing cobras and attack positioned dragons. They are also quite amazing and a lot bigger than Don Alacran’s but the colours and the subject matter aren’t as welcoming. Anyway, he was really happy that I bought the turtle from him and he told me that if business was better he would have given it for free, I told him not to worry, that I wouldn’t have accepted it for free, that’s his job and his prices are less than fair. Don Alacran’s name is Amado by the way (Loved in Spanish). I hope he really is.

I then walked further downtown to get a public transportation bus to take me to the east side of town, cross the border back to the United States on that side and go to a family dinner. I kept Don Alacran in mind. Maybe we can do something for him, like sell and ship his figurines with the help of the Internet. Otherwise stop by and say hi to him, buy something from him if you happen to be on Juarez avenue. He’d be the one with the cowboy hat and a dozen or so little wire insects in front of him.

Day 15

Monday

Amount of money made (BC subtracted): $9.58

Time Played: 1h 50min

Little wire turtle: $1

Public transportation: .45c

Actual gain: $8.13

Currency exchange rate: 11.00 pesos/dollar

Knowing that Don Amado was only having tortillas that night: heartbraking, eye opening, priceless.